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Saturday, April 13, 2013

Regulation strangles businesses. Krugman can't see it

Nobel laureate Professor Paul Krugman of Princeton University has trouble seeing. He just can't see the evidence in front of him. He says that government regulation has no impact on businesses creating jobs. That's what he says. He is blinded by his role as The Star spokesperson for more government control of everything. With Greta Van Susteren at Real Clear Politics.

Greta tells Krugman to talk to small business owners who are being clobbered by regulations. The Star claims he talks to small business people and they tell him that regulations don't keep them from creating jobs. Oh, Star, who did you talk to? Did you find one such person? Who?

Talk to Fred DeLuca who build Subway sandwich shops franchise from nothing that now has a half a million jobs. In a recent interview, DeLuca said, “If I started Subway today, Subway would not exist." DeLuca said the environment for entrepreneurs in the U.S. has "continuously gotten worse because there are more and more regulations. It's tough for people to get into business, especially a small business."

Last year, a report by the Kauffman Foundation, a national nonprofit organization that promotes and studies entrepreneurship, revealed the survey results of small business owners across the nation who were asked to rank their state’s friendliness to business. The responses of our state’s small business owners pegged Washington as boasting the 10th least-friendly business regulations nationwide. Similarly, a survey last year by Chief Executive Group of 650 CEOs cited Washington’s “regulatory snares” as a factor in our state’s ranking as the 13th worst state for business.

Even government officials acknowledge today’s layers of complex and confusing government regulations hurt businesses.

A state Department of Revenue study on the business survival rate in Washington found that “taxes and costs of complying with government regulations are factors that contribute to business failure.”

Governor Gregoire explained her moratorium on new agency regulations saying, “the time and effort small business owners would put into meeting new requirements would be better spent in improving their bottom line, and adding new employees.... We want businesses to create jobs.”

Even Christine Gregoire, ex-governor, could admit the problem. But do anything? She is an expert at added regulations on businesses.